I listen to my heart
thumping its muffled rhythm;
listen to the ambience
of the room
and the low hum from the engines
of morning machines
on the distant motorway
stretching far into the dawn

I keep a dedicated place
for meditation
in a room on the east side
of the apartment, a.k.a. the retreat

I lie back on my bed
in a room facing west,
a.k.a. the bedroom or the study,
envisioning my place of meditation
out east,
just a snaking motion away,
through living room and kitchen

This house,
with tenants in each apartment,
lies north-south
on an elevation on the outskirts of town,
once upon a time occupied by a farm
with all the farm houses characteristic
of such a venture,
now only remembered, if even that,
by the name it has left for the area,
moving effortlessly with the planet,
rolling around its tilting axis
and the star,
and on a grander scale,
with the galaxy,
225 million years per revolution